Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

Well, according to BDB the root of TOV is tet-waw-bet. This root is also
found in Arabic, with a yod equivalent in the middle, and Akkadian. This
confirms that the roots were separate as far back as proto-Semitic. But
some scholars have surmised that many triliteral roots were originally
biliteral in an even older form of the language, and were then extended.
So there is room for a hypothesis that both TOV and TEVA` come from a
common biliteral root tet-bet. Unfortunately such hypotheses are quite
unprovable and so speculative as we have no records that far back.

Peter Kirk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Shoshanna Walker [mailto:rosewalk AT concentric.net]
> Sent: 20 January 2002 04:57
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: RE: PS And God saw that it was good
> 
> Same spelling in Hebrew - Tet, Bet, Ayin
> 
> It might be a different root from Tov, but it is still related;
> according to our tradition, the Tet Bet in Teva and in Tov are not
> accidental.
> 
> Teva probably derived from Tov.
> 
> So what is the root of Tov??  And what is the root of Teva??
> 
> Shoshanna
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Shoshanna, what is the Hebrew spelling of the word Teva = "nature"? It
> doesn't seem to be biblical. But it seems very similar to an Arabic
word
> for "nature", tab`, which is spelled with the equivalent of Hebrew
> tet-bet-ayin. But that would have to be a quite different root from
TOV.
> 
> Peter Kirk
> 
> >
> > Also the word Tov is related to the word meaning "nature" - Teva
> >
> > So you could translate this as "and G-d saw that it was all working
> > well according to the laws of nature which He set into place."
> >
> > Shoshanna
> 
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